A Change To Be Feared
by Achenar
Summary: A oneshot, halfhour reinterpretation of a particular sceneconcept in SO3. Because sometimes the change in an old friend is too much to cope with.


_because sometimes the change is too much_

_**AN: **_

_**Haven't written a fanfic in years, and I probably won't ever again; that's my excuse for suckitude and I'm sticking to it.**_

_**Only finished the game today, but something way back sticks in my mind something awful. It's just after the hostage-swap scene, or around that time. I remember watching Sophia, albeit a little dumbly, just accepting everything – but Fayt has changed a LOT in the time, in terms of power and personality. And I was thinking – a girl like Sophia, who, regardless of how nice she is, is a bit ditzy… they wouldn't accept that. They'd be terrified. It's like when an idealistic boy goes away to war and comes back years later, a (relatively) hardened killer. I don't think anyone could really accept that.**_

_**So I've written my own little fragment of what I think seems more realistic. I'm not saying Fayt is a monster, or anything, although Sophia in this certainly seems to consider it. And I know I've cut out some dialogue; it's mostly introspection and including the irrelevant would detract.**_

_**So…read. And review if you want; I won't mind, that's for sure.**_

_**Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Except the word suckitude, which isn't actually used in the fic anyway. Squaresoft(Enix?) owns everything, including my soul.**_

The shadows cast across the walls – old, stone, in places covered in moss or slime or something unhygienic and green – are perhaps more disturbing than the Vendeeni, the wild battles finished only recently, the strange people. What – where - is this backwater? Oil lamps haven't been used in thousands of years. The flickering, ever moving battle between light and dark make the strong, fearless figures ranged around me look sinister. His voice, his expression, though, tinged with concern; a little condescending, as if he has aged yet I am still the child he first knew me, but reassuring all the same.

But he, too, looks fearless, determined. When he speaks, shaking blue hair back from his eyes, the concern in his face replaced by something I just don't recognise, the others bow to his decision.

"If we try to run, they'll only come after us. We have to make a stand."

Uncle Robert looks up, shocked; does my expression reveal the same?

I watch these people – these strangers, but for _him_ - and try desperately to ignore the throbbing pain in my ankle. They don't appear to have noticed quite how heavily I'm leaning against the chair back; else they've associated it with the injury. That's at least partially true; it's been difficult to relax on the Vendeeni ship, treated like scum, a means to an end. It's not over; stupid of me to think it was, but my body has just about shut down with relief at being out of their hands.

Maybe the exhaustion will cover for my confusion.

His father speaks, and his words come slowly, tentatively.

"You've grown, Fayt."

Grown? Is that what it is? It was only a few weeks ago that we were at the Grantier and I could make him blush and stumble with the tiniest gesture, a single sentence – '_you'd rather play games than hang out at the beach with me!_'. It was funny, really; I think he thought so. It was as though puberty hadn't quite released its hold on him. I, of course, was much more mature. Maybe.

While I've been thinking, staring at him – I must look like such a ditz – and wondering what could possibly have happened, they've been talking further, and now he and the other girl – Maria, was it? – look angry. What have I missed?

"Well then, tell us why?" The girl, impassioned, throws up an arm, her voice rising rapidly in pitch – is her hair white, or grey? Is it just the light? Am I really this shallow, to be thinking like this?

"How could you treat your own child like a guinea pig?"

_What? What have I missed?_

Has something happened in these weeks that's more than just our parting? What has Uncle done? But… no. He was with me. He can't have done anything.

"This is Maria. Maria _Traydor_." Fayt stresses her last name, as though it has some significance. If it does, I've certainly missed it. As worked up as the other girl, his aggressive stance places him between his father and Maria – but it looks more like he's defending the girl than Robert. Are they connected? Have they…? What have I missed?

"You performed genetic engineering on her, just like you did to me."

I start forward, then, and have vocalised a query in a moment, but the pain in my ankle and sheer exhaustion cause me to sink back within moments. I've told him I'm okay; I can't go back on that now. Despite my attempts to focus, what scant explanation is offered makes no sense to me, and is then interrupted by the arrival of possibly the largest man I've ever seen, the one who had split off earlier to draw the Vendeeni away.

And then, apparently, it's time to start moving again and no more discussion seems forthcoming.

Moving through the murky halls of these ruins – and again, I wonder, where are we, that it's so old and damp? – I have no energy to focus on more than the difficulty of continued movement, though my mind reels with confusion.

We reach the rooftop again, through some lost ramblings through identical corridors so that I have no idea where we've been, if I ever had a clue in the first place. Another stranger, then, this one dressed oddly in leather and steel; she destroys the jammer, and Fayt seems to know her (has he been constantly surrounded by pretty girls since we parted?)… but many more new people and events and my head might explode.

I've got to blame my ankle; my mind feels encased by fog, and it's taking me a moment or two to react to anything, even this new woman being shot by the Vendeeni captain (but surviving, thank god), and then Uncle. This I can react to; he's been so kind to me since we were captured, and now…he's gone?

I scream, but it's a pitiful sound and nothing compared to the roar of anguish Fayt emits. Even that is muted, soon, as he strains to listen to his father's gasped words. I hear my name – it's one of those things people can always catch, their name, I've noticed that.

When he stands to face Biwig, there's grief in his eyes… but rage, too, so disturbing I stumble backwards, and more of that determination.

And they fight.

Oh, god, they fight. And as I watch glowing sigils form in the air around him, watch him decapitate a soldier without hesitation, shoot balls of flame at the captain, while the strangers, too, exert their strength almost carelessly to remove the threat, I stand back uselessly and can't work out what has happened, that in such a short time he should become a different person.

Screaming silently as he barely dodges a beam of energy shot from the captain's gun, his vengeful anger, his competence in this violence… I'm afraid. This is not the boy who a week or two ago begged me to play a game – a video game, not this blood-and-guts battle – with him.

It's over almost as quickly as it begun, at least in my eyes, partially hiding behind a pillar and struggling not to retch; only after he's given his sword a quick wipe does he return his attention to his dying father.

Now I stumble forward, but I sink down by Uncle Robert's body on the other side, with him on the other and a solid obstacle between us. I shouldn't be afraid; this is the boy who once helped put sticking plasters on my knees and allowed me, once, to dress him up in my girliest clothes.

But that was a long time ago. Only a few weeks, but this boy is as much a stranger to me as anyone else here, and he scares me more because when I look at him I still expect to see the old Fayt smiling back.


End file.
